


A Drunk Lizard on Your Hands

by DroppedAllTheseOreos



Series: Gardening 101: Caring for Your Geckophite [1]
Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Bugs & Insects, Excessive Talk About Eating Bugs, Gardens & Gardening, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:22:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24641605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DroppedAllTheseOreos/pseuds/DroppedAllTheseOreos
Summary: Kiriya moves back to Okinawa to help take care of his granduncle's house and meets a friend in an unexpected place.
Relationships: Graphite/Kujou Kiriya
Series: Gardening 101: Caring for Your Geckophite [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2063631
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Kiriphite (Kiriya Kujou/Graphite) Fics, Oreos' Fanfic Gauntlets





	A Drunk Lizard on Your Hands

Being back in Okinawa was strange. Kiriya had become so accustomed to the rush of living in Tokyo, he'd forgotten what it was like to be in a place where he didn't have to crane his neck all the way to see the sky or take his sweet time walking down the street. His granduncle needed help house-sitting since he was planning to stay with the relatives in America for a while and Kiriya's job situation suddenly became... well, free. Thanks, Dan Kuroto.

As his granduncle was heading out, he asked Kiriya to give the disaster of a front yard some tender love and care since his love for gardening was pretty well known in the family. His mom had baby picture upon baby picture of him in a little sunhat and covered in dirt, happily playing around in the mud or hard at work in the yard at his childhood home. Kiriya was a little nervous since he'd dropped gardening as a hobby since moving to Tokyo. He only had a couple of succulents, now safely in the care of his friend Asuna, so a whole garden, even on this small-ish scale was a big ask. But as he got to work, he slowly fell back into the rhythms while checking out gardening forums and blogs to help keep him on the right track. Kiriya found himself smiling a lot more as he worked. He knew there'd be complications with staying here long-term, but for now, this was the happiest he'd been in a long time. It felt like he was getting a part of himself back that he didn't even know he was missing.

And now, two months into his stay, he already had a lot done, having nurtured a withering bush near the entrance of the yard back to health, getting it to flower nicely. A few more flowering bushes were starting to dot the perimeter of the yard, giving it some much needed pops of color. closer to the house, he had small patches of vegetables to lighten his grocery runs and to have something nice to give out to the neighbors that dropped by to visit. He was pretty damn pleased with himself.

But with progress, there were always setbacks, and Kiriya's came in the form of a pillbug population boom. Usually, he wouldn't mind them too much, but when he was coming up with left pillbugs none lettuce (or a majority of his other veggies, for that matter), he knew it was time to do something. There were quite a few geckos living around the area, and when he saw them, he'd practice his Okinawan by gently encouraging them to go eat the pillbugs, but it didn't seem to do much. Figures. They were so outnumbered it would be a losing battle.

Kiriya started digging little holes into the ground and placing cups half-filled with beer inside. He was a little skeptical when he read up on this method, but figured might as well try it out before using pesticides or other harmful methods. And to his surprise, it worked really well. The cups were filled to the brim with beer and bugs by the next morning and he was able to get rid of them safely. So he kept planting the cups every night to try to curb the population because he knew those first cups couldn't have made a huge dent in the colony fucking up his garden. And it worked well. Really well...

Until it got weird.

The cups started moving. And even weirder, instead of beer and bugs being spilled everywhere like they ought to if something knocked them over, there was nothing. The cups would just be placed around his little patch of shima rakkyo, completely emptied out, and some of the vegetables dug out and gone as well. He could only assume that something was eating whatever was in the cups and chasing it with the little shallot-like veggies.

At first, he tried to justify it as the pillbugs shifting around in the dirt and the wind moving the cups, so Kiriya started packing in the dirt around them a little tighter. It didn't explain the missing contents of each cup, but he'd at least be able to rule it out when this method didn't work.

But surprisingly, it did work for a while and he started to lower his guard. Until the bugs and beer went missing again, but this time, he found grooves in the dirt that looked like they were dug in by human-shaped fingers to pry the cups out. After borrowing a baseball bat from one of the neighbors, he stayed up, just watching the garden for the mysterious intruder. It was a surprisingly bright night, full moon, so the garden was well lit. And in the dead of night, the weirdest thing happened. He saw a little gecko, light enough in color to stand out from the dirt, start tugging at one of the cups, but when it was unable to dig it up, it crawled away into the grass. Kiriya thought he caught his culprit, case closed. But that was before the gecko rapidly grew and transformed into a humanoid shape.

The new figure looked mostly human, except for the long tail tapering to a thin point growing from the base of their spine and the wicked claws their fingers ended in. They crawled back over to the cups and started digging one out, freeing it and pounding back the mix of booze and bugs like a college kid with something to prove.

Kiriya found himself running outside without being entirely sure of what he was doing but he was already in the open when he regained control of his body, and now he was frozen to the spot when the gecko person's head whipped around to stare at him. They blinked golden brown eyes with slit pupils at him. And now that he was closer to them, the things he thought were shadows from the trees were actually dark brown patterns camouflage stippled across their bare skin.

They held completely still as well, and both of them stared, watching each other cautiously for what felt like ages until the gecko person spoke up in something Kiriya almost didn't catch.

Fuck, he'd been chatting with the neighbors but his Okinawan was still rusty since they had mercy on him and spoke Japanese when he was struggling.

"Um... Could you repeat that?" He said tentatively.

"Where's the old man?" They repeated.

Kiriya took a small breath to try and ease his nerves before answering, "He's away... um... traveling?" It was the best he could come up with because he had no idea how much this... being (?) knew about human concepts like vacation, "You know him?"

They shrugged, "He's always here, but then he suddenly disappeared and you showed up asking us to eat these bugs. Never had a reason to be like this when he was around, but you started putting these out, so..."

Kiriya fought the sudden urge to hide his face in his hands, "You understood that, huh? Um... well, you don't have to eat them if you don't wanna..."

They watched him for a while longer, a grin slowly growing on their face, then turned to dig the other cup out of the dirt, "Why would I pass up an easy meal?" They made eye contact right before they threw back that cup too.

Kiriya swallowed nervously, this whole night was turning out to be more than he ever imagined. He just ended up sitting down in the doorway, watching them go about their business, digging around for more bugs, their long, sticky tongue shooting out in the dirt to pick them up. And when they couldn't find any more, they moved over to the shima rakkyo patch with a bit of a tipsy stumble to their steps. Kiriya was a little tempted to tell them off, but they were kinda doing him a solid by helping to get rid of the bugs, so they probably earned the right to take some veggies.

* * *

And the nights continued like that. Sometimes there'd be fewer bugs, so Kiriya wouldn't set out the cups, letting their numbers grow a little so the lizard person would have a nice, big meal when they showed up next. Whenever they'd show up it would always be as a gecko first, trying to dig up the cups until they realized it was too hard and had to go into their human form.

"Why do you always bury them so tight?" They huffed one night.

Kiriya was squatting nearby, playing with the leaves on his hibiscus bush, and just shrugged, "Maybe I like hanging out with you."

He wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, the alcohol or something else, but it looked like they were blushing. They quickly knocked back the next cup of bugs and beer to occupy themself, and Kiriya pretended to suddenly be more interested in his flowers. The gecko person swallowed thickly, turning away even more before mumbling something.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch—"

Their head whipped around, catching him in that eerie golden-brown gaze, "I said my name's Graphite."

Kiriya was taken aback, but when he recovered he just asked, "Graphite? Where'd you get that name from?"

They rolled their eyes with an aggressive sounding trill and Kiriya had to laugh. He knew it was a frustrated sound, but it was kinda cute.

"Sorry," He chortled when they glared harshly at him, "Sorry, that's rude. I'm Kiriya."

Graphite looked away and repeated his name softly, pressing the pads of their claws to their mouth like they were feeling the sounds out. Kiriya bit down on another smile, trying not to seem like he was laughing at them again, but the action made his chest tight and warm.

* * *

"Is alcohol even healthy for geckos?"

"Is it healthy for humans?"

"...Well, you got me there."

* * *

"What's this?" Graphite asked as Kiriya shoved a bowl of fried shima rakkyo at him one night.

"You know these things you like are supposed to be pre-beer snacks, right?" Kiriya popped one into his mouth to prove they were safe to eat, and Graphite tentatively reached in, grabbing a whole handful and shoving them in his mouth. Kiriya watched expectantly, and he grinned wide when Graphite's eyes lit up, turning towards him with lips slightly parted around a soft, surprised noise that wasn't quite making its way out of his mouth. But he suddenly remembered he wasn't making his usual grumpy expression and struggled to get it back. It was a good try, but he was still obviously feeling excited over the revelations of cooked food. Kiriya had to chuckle, which turned into a cackle when Graphite's full glare was turned on him.

He handed the gecko man a bottle of beer as compensation for his hurt pride, opening his own and showed him how to cheers. The night was kind of a blur from there on, but somehow he found himself lying in the grass with Graphite, who had hibiscus petals in his hair and a full one on his left ear, just staring up at the sky. Graphite was going on about some gecko people folklore about the stars that Kiriya would've found way more interesting if he wasn't so smashed. Instead, he turned over on his side and brushed a hand over the skin and scales along Graphite's jawbone and cheek, who blinked up at him, slow but curious.

Kiriya brushed a thumb over his cheekbone slowly, then tried to lean in. He realized he was a little too far away halfway down, and awkwardly shuffled closer, leaning in again and kissing Graphite's slightly open mouth for real this time. He made a surprised chirp, but eagerly leaned into the contact and deepened the kiss when he started getting the hang of it. Maybe things would be different and awkward tomorrow, but for tonight, Kiriya had this, and it felt precious and beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration for this fic [(here)](https://awed-frog.tumblr.com/post/616472577900265472/okay-but-imagine-youre-a-tiny-lizard-living-your)
> 
> Also this is kind of a Stardew Valley inspired AU where there’s hot, dateable monster people. So Kiriya lost his job at the business office, giving him the perfect opportunity to go farm and get a monster bf


End file.
